Posts Tagged ‘webcomics’

To be honest, when I started putting this strip online, I was not following any webcomics. But since I was getting into the “business,” I thought I should explore what the field has to offer. So I started browsing around and let me tell ya… yeesh! It’s an extremely mixed bag out there. And a BIG mixed bag too. Wading through it all to find the gems can be a chore. Recommendations are very valuable. And so, I’ll share a few of mine. I haven’t explored too deeply, but I’ve found a few quality webcomics I could share.

This comic is about a group of teens in some distant future who are basically the Ghostbusters of malfunctioning robots. It sounds like the set-up to a Saturday morning cartoon, and in fact it looks and feels like a Saturday morning cartoon too. But this would be one of those cartoons about which, years later, you’d find yourself saying something like: “You know, that Robomeks was actually good. In fact, it was REALLY good.”

First of all, the art is fantastic. The figure drawing is always fluid and natural and the expressions are clear. Everything looks seamless, and the coloring effects are top-notch. The look and feel of the current pages is much slicker than the early stuff on the site, and takes full advantage of the digital medium.

Secondly, despite the Scooby-Doo-like premise, the story continually proves to be a bit deeper than you’d guess. The implications of a world filled with artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and nanotechnology are fully considered. It’s not just flying cars.

All this and it’s updated like clockwork 3 times a week. Hopefully, someone will take notice of this comic and turn it into an actual Saturday morning cartoon. And then hopefully they don’t dumb it down.

That link takes you to the first page of the first chapter because this webcomic is a coherent story done in comic-book format.

As far as I know, there aren’t too many webcomics trying to do what Heroes, Inc. is: create a serious and thoughtful superhero story.

Here’s the summary: The story takes place in an alternate history where Germany won WWII. The Allies had some super-hero/super-soldiers on their side, but apparently that didn’t help. (yet to be revealed exactly what happened) In the modern day, some of those superheroes, who are old but not as aged as if they were normal people, are helping a corporation to create new super-people. These characters also happen to be actual public domain characters from the comic book Golden Age.

I chose an action page to paste above, but really this is just as much of a talky-thinking comic. The backstory is well thought out and is gradually being revealed along with the present-day story. The tone and dialogue aims to be as realistic as possible given the subject matter, similar in some ways to the Watchmen.

The art matches the tone well and is perfectly suited to telling this story, using a more muted watercolor look and – I’m guessing here – lots of photo reference. The photo reference is actually not my favorite style and sometimes the characters can look sorta stiff or a wee bit “off.” (Please note that any critiques of someone else’s work should not be taken as an assertion that my own is any better) But this is minor, art-class-critique nitpicking. The main thing here is the story and the art always works in its favor.

This comic is on a hiatus right now, but that’s actually the best time to jump in. Heroes, Inc. is paced as a comic book, with 2 issues complete. So it’s best read in issue-sized blocks and could seem a little slow when read as it updates. Go to the site now and you get 2 free issues of a cool comic book that will probably leave you wanting to read the rest of the story. It certainly feels like there’s a 6- or 12-issue story arc here and things are just getting started.

I know, without any updates to DBMD-Man over the last couple of weeks, you just don’t know what to do with yourselves. Where will you get your funny superhero webcomics until DBMD-Man resumes??? (which will happen soon, really…) Never fear, I now present my next webcomic recommendation, and it is about a bazillion times funnier than this one: THE NON-ADVENTURES OF WONDERELLA by Justin Pierce.

Look, we all use the phrase “LOL” a little too much. Not me, I never use it, but you know those damn kids. But how often does something actually make you Laugh Out Loud? When was the last time a comic strip made you? This comic makes me Literally Laugh Out Loud (“LLOL”?) virtually every single time. Seriously. I have made the mistake of looking at this comic at work and had to hide behind my computer monitor stifling laughter for extended periods.

The premise: Wonderella is some kind of Wonder-Woman-like superhero who is the child of some kind of amorphous glowing Godhead entity and her mother, the WWII-era Wonderella. She lives in a world populated mainly by female heroes and villains, though she also runs into a wide range of real, fictional, and pop-culture figures. A “superhero” in name and costume only, she’s apathetic, entirely selfish, rude, crass, an alcoholic, and maybe a little racist too. Basically, one of those raging id characters that everyone loves, like Cartman from South Park.

Some of the best things about this comic: No on-going story at all. Every one-page episode can be read alone. There are references to what has come before, and it’s even funnier if you know the characters a bit, but you don’t have to. The voices. What? Voices in a comic strip? Yes, this comic showed me that I have been completely overlooking the potential for dialogue text to show expression. With the use of different fonts and simple tricks like italics, bold, and caps, you can really hear the dialogue in this comic and it makes it so much funnier.

But again, the Number One best thing about this comic is that it’s flat-out hysterical. It was basically impossible to pick a few of the best moments to highlight here, so I really just grabbed a few panels almost at random. As on eof the best examples though, I’d like to point you to this strip, “Bad to the CLONE,” wherein every single panel got a laugh out of me. This one is Futurama-level funny, where every line of dialogue has the power to crack you up.

Okay, hopefully I haven’t hyped it too much and you’ll still find Wonderella as great as I did. Maybe I should add some negative remarks. Well, it’s occasionally “offensive” I guess. A few rare jokes are obscure or nerdy enough that I didn’t get them. But seriously, Wonderella: highest possible recommendation.

I’ve added a few more ads to the website here, partly as an experiment. Here’s your chance to speak up. Please add your comments to this post. Let’s discuss. How much do you hate ads?

Personally, I don’t really hate the kind that just sit there very much at all. If the ad doesn’t pop up over the top of what I’m looking at or start making noise, I don’t really care. I almost don’t notice. Besides, if the content is free, why should I care? You may observe that I do, however, try to keep the website title, navigation, and comic top-left, so those are always the first things you see.

I figure if I were using a free web-hosting service I’d have to deal with ads, so I may as well put up some of my own and make a little money off of them. Right? But I’m not kidding when I say it’s a LITTLE money. Right now I’m making maybe a dime a day, on good days. Hey, it’s more than I’m earning from my savings account. Is it worth it?

I also decided to put some more ads up becausse I’ve been so happy with the Project Wonderful system. It attracts DIY-type advertisers and is big with webcomic artists, so most of the ads are for other webcomics. In fact, I would ENCOURAGE you to click on the Project Wonderful ads and check them out! They are paid for by the day, so the more clicks they get the happier they are. Most of them are other webcomics and if they advertised here, then maybe you’d like them.

On the other hand, I can NOT encourage you to click on the Google ads! that’s the banner at the very bottom and the text ads on the right. I mean, I don’t want to DIScourage you, but I am contractually obligated not to encourage you to click on them, because the advertisers pay per click. So don’t do it. Unless you already were going to. You know what? Just forget I mentioned it…

All the new ad boxes might make things a little too busy now… We’ll see. You tell me. How much do you hate them? There are even ads in my RSS feed. Do you hate them also?

I know, I know, I missed 2 updates, last Friday and Monday both. But I know just what would help make it better: YOU doing something for ME! No, wait… I said that wrong. How about this: I give you all a very special (virtual) gift and all you have to do is do something (actual) for me! Sounds great right?

Here’s the deal. You click on this link and vote for my comic strip at this “Top Web Comics” site, and then you’ll get to see a super-special, top-secret, deleted DBMD-Man strip! When you click on this button, it takes you to Top Web Comics and then you have to click another simple quiz thing to prove you’re a human being and the secret comic will appear. Here it is, CLICK!:

But seriously… I really, really, really appreciate anyone checking out this comic. It is especially nice and heart-warming when people leave nice comments or best of all, spread the word! Lately I’d noticed the ranking number on this link creeping upwards and figured someone else besides me must be clicking on it! (In fact the “culprit” fessed up in the comments recently)

The Top Web Comics site actually does send some visitors my way, so voting here improves DBMD-Man’s visibility and hence, helps to spread the word! If anyone who sees this could click and vote – that would be very cool. You can vote on any day, and in fact EVERY day (once a day) if you want to, and it always helps. The link is on the right side of the webpage under the ads.

Top Web Comics also lets you add an “incentive” so that’s the above-mentioned deleted comic. I think it’s not a good one, which is why I never posted it, but for the curious and the fans you may find it interesting. It would be strip #27.5 – just before DBMD-Man was left with the psychiatrist. I left my handwritten text and hand-drawn frames in place. The joke really came out lame – there was something there but it wasn’t working, then I ran out of time… whatever. You get to see it once you vote.